Back to life, back to reality

So I just got back to my little town (and to the internet :) ) after being gone for a week and a half to help my sister and her husband and their four kids move. It was a good week, for a lot of reasons. It's always good to spend time with the fam, ya know :) , and I am THRILLED that they are now only 40 minutes away from me, and I am glad that my life schedule is flexible enough that I could go and help.

And, I won't lie, it was good to be away from the thesis for a bit. Maybe that was my 7th-inning stretch (or is it 5th-inning stretch? whatever) so that I can make the final effort to get this thing done. Tuesday night, the night that my sister and bro-in-law's friends were going to show up at 6 to load the moving van, my 7-yr-old niece and I were sitting out on the front porch a little after 5, and after a couple of days of crazy-paced packing and cleaning, it was a little...odd?...to be sitting so quietly. So I explained to her the phrase "the calm before the storm," saying that things were going to get REALLY crazy at the house starting at 6, and so it was nice to have these few minutes of quiet before all the craziness started, but that we knew that it was not a calm that was going to last. And, being 7 :) , she asked me a bunch of questions about weather, and WHY it's calm before the storm, and I realized that with an intelligent, inquisitive child, I should really think before I speak. :)

So I kind of feel, about this last week and a half, the way I felt about that few minutes before the moving crew arrived. The calm won't last. I have TONS to do. My chair leaves for Europe this week, and I have lots of editing to do before he leaves. And we need to figure out paperwork, and scheduling, and committee members availability, etc., so that I can really be DONE with this thesis thing before school starts in the fall. Because this fall, people, I'm giving up the status of "university student," at least for a while. And it's going to be GREAT!! :) :)